 It can be really confusing out in the fitness, health, and wellness world. What works? What doesn't work? Is it vegan? Is it carnivore? Paleo? What about workouts? What's the best workout? What about sleep? Or biohacks? Oh my God. So much stuff to sift through. Oftentimes we end up arguing with each other in the space, making it even more confusing. Here, let me fix it for you. These are the fitness and health truths. They're true across the board with whether or not you talk to a bodybuilder, a fitness professional, a wellness expert, a functional medicine practitioner, or even a doctor. These are all true. Ready? Eat whole foods. Stick to that. Drink mostly or only water. Make sure you get adequate sleep every single night. Lift weights one to two days a week minimum. You'll get great benefits from just doing that, and then every day walk a lot. That's it. Those things, they're about 95% of the way there. That's too easy and boring. I feel like something like this gets you fired up because you saw something again. I didn't. What did you see? I was just thinking about... I think you're lying. No, I didn't. I was just thinking about all the arguing and infighting in the health and fitness space and how much that hurts the goal of helping the average person because the average person is just confused. This person over here says, don't eat that. This person over here says it's the healthiest thing to eat. They say, do this exercise, and they say that's a bad exercise. People literally are just like, screw it. I'm not going to do anything. Or they try something. Cheating information everywhere. Yeah. Or they'll try something. It doesn't work. They try one thing. It doesn't work. Okay. Nothing works. I'm not going to do this anymore. You know what made me think of this actually? I was thinking of a conversation I had with Bishop Barron way back in the day. One of the questions I had for him was, you know, obviously he's a Catholic Bishop. So I said, you know, what do you think about other religions that say similar things? There's a lot of similar messages in religions that have stood the test of time. And he said, well, there's something called spiritual truth. So even though I believe that my religion is the right one, there is a spiritual truth that can be communicated across different religions and spiritualities and all that stuff. And I thought, wow, okay. So obviously take the esoteric side of art that, you know, that makes sense. In our space, there's lots of different, I don't know, quote, unquote religions or whatever beliefs, but there are some underlying truths across the board. Like everything I just said. No one would argue with. Nobody's going to argue with. Yeah. They can't. No. Everything I said is 100%. That's it. And it literally will take care of, you take the average person, 95% of what they're trying to accomplish. They'll get by just doing what I say. You know what? I have this visual in my head, which is always dangerous. I know. Ramp water. Okay. Throwback. Yeah. Like, I was thinking of the periodic table of elements and it's like, if you put these all together, like something like that is like, this is the most simple version of everything you're listening to, right? Building blocks. You can literally mix them all together. You can create whatever modality and program and direction you want to go. This is literally the crux of what you need to be focused on. No, 100%. The crazy part to me is I actually, I blame a lot of academia, man. It's pretty unfortunate that I think a lot of it's perpetuated by the smartest people in the space. Oh, so true. I mean, when you look at some of the most popular, you know, quote unquote dumb fitness influencers that have, you know, millions of people paying attention to them, a lot of it's because they stick to very simple basic shit because that's all they know. It works for people. They give them little hacks or little tips related to these whole foods, water, sleep, lift, walk that you're saying. They oversimplify very complex, you know, nuanced science and give people very practical and guess what? There's a big percentage of people in a higher success rate. That's right. It ends up helping. And then you get the, the nerds that go, that's not what this, that's not what the studies say. You just convolute everything. And they get so mad that they, they come in and then they try to dispel everything that person is communicating. And they talk way over the top of 90% of their listeners and viewers. And at the end, you just leave the consumer more confused about what they should or shouldn't be doing. They're, they're more concerned with being right. Yes. Then they are with, with, with, with ego, right? We, I consider, we consider a win to be, well, we could get somebody to move in the right direction in a way that's sustainable, that they want to maintain for the rest of their life. That's a massive, huge win if you could do that right there. And you could do that repeatedly step by step over time and take somebody who has no real good connection to good health and have them develop behaviors and habits that last in the rest of their life that improves their health. Okay. That's a huge win. Unfortunately, there's so many people who just are concerned with being right. So you say the barbell squat is better than the lunge. And I say the lunge is better. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about why the squat sucks so bad. Meanwhile, average person who could benefit from doing either one, okay, or both is like, wait, which one do I do? He just said that one's bad for my back, but then that person said, it's good for my back. And that guy looks jacked, but this person over here has an MD. Like what the hell is going on? Or I'm over here saying, you know, beef is amazing. And someone else comes along and says, no, beef is bad because he has some profile. You got to stick to fish. And then someone else says, actually, all animal proteins are bad. He just plants and you're good. And it's like so insane. Our space is a huge mess of contradictory information. But what happens is if you can sift through it all, you know, if I had a big filter and I could dump all the information from the health, fitness and wellness space into it and I could shake the sifter. And then what it would do was hold back all the garbage and just the good shit would come out. Literally what I just said is exactly what would come out. Everything else that's either, would either stay on top because it's bad information or it's nuanced information. So what is nuanced information? Nuanced information means it could be good for you or it could be totally bad for you. If you're one of those people with, who has such a, for example, a hyper reactive immune system to where it reacts to any food except for just meat. These are the people who are cornivore diets work well for is they just, they have an immune reaction systemically that happens with pretty much any food aside from meat. This individual, a carnivore diet that nuanced, you know, aspect, it's, it's, it would be good for them in that particular context for someone else. Terrible advice. It would be absolute horrible advice for health or sustainability or, or anything else. So that's really it. That's the bottom line. Now, you know, that simplifies everything. We still have a big road ahead of us because now what we've got to do is communicate to people on how they can adopt behaviors that make all of those things possible. How can they navigate in a world where the default is poor health, where the default is in activity, where the default is not whole natural foods is not getting good adequate sleep is not even walking anymore is not even the default. So that's, we still have a road ahead of us. It's not, I'm not saying we solved everything, but can we at least start with like, here's, here's what it is. Ignore everything else and you can figure out the nuances for yourself and some of it's true. Some of it's not true. It depends on the person. You've got three things you can control as a coach. Okay. You only get three and everything else completely out the window. So you three things that you can guarantee that person is going to do to be, and they come into you as a, as a client and they're unhealthy, they're overweight, they're deconditioned. They don't have muscle and they want to be healthy, right? And you can, you can only control three things to a T. Everything else is all over the board and all over the map. And you have no control. But what are the three things that you're going to control? Whole natural foods, uh, sleep and training, your workout. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, those are the three that we'll take. What about you? I'd, no, I think that's spot on. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's, I mean, that's the root of it. I mean, that's, that's massive. I would even, I would maybe change even the whole foods, hit your protein intake. I would say that. I can argue back and forth for that because God, the fitness space has gotten really good. If you want to get more specific. Yeah. But you know, that could get a little out of hand too. But I hear you're saying because, uh, technically you could just eat whole foods and not get essential nutrients. Yeah. But you know, what's interesting, I never ran into that problem with people who only ate whole foods, who also didn't try to avoid, uh, big categories of food. So I would run into that with people who ate a whole food, vegan diet or something like that, but people who ate whole, not whole foods who were okay with eating, you know, everything that was considered whole foods. I never ran into an issue where I'm looking at their diet and go under protein. Uh, I did. Maybe, okay. Maybe not the optimal, but not to the point where I'm like, Oh, we're detrimental. Okay. That's fair. I mean, maybe. I mean, I just, I think that you, you commit, I mean, this brings back to the, the, the posts that we just recently talked about where Max Ludovir came on there and said something and Paul did a video of it and our buddy Josh and it turned into like this, you know, debate on whether like this is worth arguing over, right? This, which is what I feel like this conversation is kind of stemming from. Uh, and I think that most people, most normal people, not fitness enthusiasts, okay? Normal people that struggle with being healthy, uh, grossly under consumed protein. I think just hitting that, that would naturally satiate them and keep them away from a lot of processed foods. So like if I said, listen, all I'm controlling is you are, your goal weight is 170 pounds. So we're going to hit 170 grams of protein every single day. That's what I'm controlling with. That's, and I'm going to, and I'm going to take my chances with how everything else falls. Just saying whole foods, I think that would put them in a, uh, weight loss, healthy perspective. But I think if I'm, if my other thing I'm controlling is lifting weights to get the maximum benefits from those lifting weights, I want to make sure they're hitting that protein. Well, you, you gave us three. If I could add a fourth one that would take them from, you know, you know, 90% to 100% of the way that it would be protein. So I'd be like, you know, whole natural foods, uh, get good sleep, lift weights and hit your protein targets. You're, I mean, And then make sure you're hydrated. Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna add one more. Now you guys are breaking the rules. Forget it. Forget it. I mean that, yeah, that was the point of this exercise was obviously you're gonna have to sacrifice something. Yeah. Obviously you're going to miss somewhere because you're only attacking three things. And I'm saying that the other ones are going to be all over the place. I would say that those three would, would make the easiest difference. Imagine if, like, okay, imagine if we were competing with another team and we had to get, you know, we had a sample size of a thousand people and we had to loosely coach them over the course of five years. I hate these like two months, like, you know, whatever it doesn't count. I could do all kinds of crazy shit in two months. That's not sustainable or whatever. Five years. Let's make that the goal. And all we could do was give them general advice and they would stick to it. If we told them what I just said, we kicked the crap out of everybody. Yeah. If we could get them to eat whole foods, drink good, you know, just drink water, get good sleep, lift some weights and then every day make sure you walk. They would crush any other specialist with any other special diet or plan or breakthrough work out or whatever. They would get crushed because the R side would not only get results, they'd get results in a sustainable way and they, it would be, and here's what happens with this. This is why I like to say eat whole foods is because when people are doing this and on this journey, it's an easy step, naturally kind of controls your intake and then people start to modify it as they go along the journey themselves. This is what you start to see. At least what I used to see is then clients would say, oh, I eat more of this. I feel better. Eat less of that. I feel better. And they would start to mold their whole food diet based around that, which is really what it should be. But that's like, gosh, man, if people only knew, that's 95% of the way there. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think that eating processed foods is probably one of the greatest challenges for all people. Period. It's purely out of convenience, which is so crazy because 100 years ago we didn't even have that ability, right? No. It's so accessible now. It's like every gas station. It's every like convenience store. It's everywhere. So it's, you know, you're fighting accessibility and just the overall cost of it is really low. And so it's like, it's just, it's such a natural thing for people to just like, if they're hungry or they have a craving, it's like, boom, they're going to go in that direction. Have you, how many people you think, or what percentage of people you think have ever connected the dots like, too, like when you have that crazy craving where you, oh, I want this so bad. And you just make the mental decision to start to eat the boring prepped meal that you have already, like how quickly that subsides and goes away. Yeah. I don't know. You know who did that? That is the, that is the hardest moment right there is, I have, let's say I got busy at work or busy at school. I go like that and four or five hours piled up before I had eight. So I'm hungry. And now that I'm hungry, oh man, that drive through thing sounds good or that whatever sounds amazing. And oh, chicken and rice and vegetables. God, that doesn't sound good at all. I don't want, I don't want that and just making it past that right there to like, okay. I mean, I felt, I used to play the game like I do with like exercise where I tell myself like, okay, I, I don't have to do a full workout. I just going to go in there and just go squat one set. I'm just going to go in there and squat one set. And then I get in there and then, you know, and I, and I give you more. Yeah. And I give myself the freedom that I'll just do one set and I'll walk out if I really do not want to do it that bad. But many times I do it or most times if not all, I get in there and go, okay, I'll do a little more and a little more turns into a decent workout. The same thing goes when I have these like cravings for like a food when I go, man, I really want that burger and fries like that. Okay. I can have that, but let me go eat this first. I need to eat this. I'm behind my protein. I prepped that meal. I'm going to eat that. And then after that, how I feel, I'll determine if I go eat that and 99% of the time I eat that meal. It completely satisfied me. That craving goes away. I no longer want that, but it's giving you that freedom that I'm not playing the game of, oh, I can't have that. That's not part of my diet or, oh, I can't do that. I'll say to myself, yes, I can, but I'm going to go do this first. Yeah. I owe it to myself to feed my body what it needs first. And then if I still really want that burger and fries, I'm going to go get it. And what happens is you get that and then that. Unless I'm a super determined. Now they just doubled I'll prove you. You know what though? People don't understand this. They don't realize this with processed foods, which, you know, when I think, when I learned this, like really learned it, it was, it was actually shocking to me. The, the amount of science and engineering that goes into them is insane. It's so insane. People don't understand how much money research and development goes into, into increasing the palatability of food. And the reason why processed foods are so good at this is because I can process them. I can add ingredients and take ingredients out and add chemicals and do certain things to them in order to increase its palatability. Now people think palatability is just taste. It's not. It's the experience. They've identified this. Taste is a part of the experience. So is the smell. So is the mouthfeel. So is the crunch. So is the residue that leaves on your fingertips. So is the bag color and the way it opens. Or the box or fluorescent orange is not natural. The aftertaste, the, the melt point, like I can't even name them all. Okay. And what they'll do is they'll add things or take things away to achieve like peak palatability. And so what you're doing when you're eating a food with these foods is you're literally eating a drug like food. That's what you're eating. You're eating a drug like food. And so it's you're not going to win. You're not. You have really smart people over the last 70 years who have figured out how to engineer these foods to make them irresistible so that you buy more and they make more money. But on the other hand that you eat more. So if you think you're going to eat these foods and be able to eat in a way that's appropriate for your body, you're, there's no way to know because your body signals are all over the place. Your body signals evolved eating whole foods, not these foods so that it doesn't know what to process or signal. All it knows is dopamine is going off like crazy and all these sensations are going off and this is the most they literally tricked your brain. So that's why just avoiding these makes such a huge difference for people. Yes. I mean this is just kind of funny because we end up talking about all these other people online like you know your your PhDs and whoever and they're all squabbling over this like who's the most right and then I just immersed myself with people like I used to go to college with for like a weekend and it gives me like an entirely different perspective. Right. Like guys that like to limit themselves on just sweets alone is like a foreign concept. You know what I mean? And it's like you realize how far we lose we lose relatability so quickly and it in that that gap could further and further and further with like all these conversations like these guys are having to the point where it's like you know like I we're talking about like little Debbie's and we're talking about like treats and things that like and I just it was just kind of a funny thing because I naturally would have like a certain point where I'd be like oh I don't feel good and they're like you don't feel what do you mean you don't feel good you know like it's like you just got to keep putting it in. It's just like I don't know to me it's the people that were trying to help the most I feel like or I don't know like that mentality I'm trying to like put some breaks on in terms of like the way that we just we just circle jerk all the time and just think that every think everybody's on board already and then we just don't have any conversations that are a little more relatable they're like you know well I really do struggle with these types of foods and then there's people are arguing that like well you know it's the calories or it's the amount of macros that you're you need to balance better and it's just like they don't even understand that much of it so it's I don't know I just want to throw that in because it's no it's how dumb all these PhDs are they literally are fighting over the same 12% of people like there's 12% of the population that are at that level of understanding of breaking down macros and the complexity of what's going on with food and it's so crazy and they and they're literally fighting over the same 12% and the 12% that really don't need that much help they're looking for the competitive edge to get a little bit leaner body fat percentage or increase a PR on it and like and we're all fighting over them meanwhile the other you know 88% are floating around fucking lost and don't know how to quit eating seven little debbies a day you know what I'm saying like right and that's why I get so defensive over like a post like the one that where they came after Max Lugavir because I'm like dude the reason why he's blown up he remember his post that he did it's how he got famous was doing these comparison posts yeah of food like such basic shit like don't eat this eat this instead of giving people a better option and breaking keeping it as simple as possible like that's where most people are at and of course it's the 12% that want to attack him and be like oh we're smarter than that okay you are you and your fucking friends are going to go to the gym every day and have been for the last 10 years but that's not everybody I was like I'm in the business of trying to help by the way too it's a smarter business strategy to go out for the 88% than is the 12% it's just it's just so funny it's just harder and they don't know how yeah it's harder it takes more patience and communication today's program giveaway is maps anabolic if you want to win that program here's what you got to do leave a comment below this video in the comment section we're also running a sale right now maps anabolic advanced is half off if you're interested just click on the link at the top of the description below alright back to the show I have a question though for Justin this made me think about this do you think more engineering has gone into food than to getting us to land on the moon wow that's a loaded question we're trying to get him to say he's trying to call me out because because of our conversation with it yes I do believe we went on the moon so I just want to put that out there but I also believe that you know there was plans in case we didn't make it that they had a studio you guys fucked my weekend up by saying some shit like that to me bro listen there's a lot of good editing I wasted at least eight hours of my weekend researching that bullshit because of that it's literally of all the conspiracy crazy ones it's the most plausible that's all I'm trying to that's all I'll say the most plausible the motive behind it makes sense when people complain to talk about flat earth and stuff like that I like to hear at least a motive yeah I like to hear a motive that makes sense at least it might be crazy I don't believe it but okay why why then would they do that and they never make sense but the moon landing one the rationale makes sense that we were in a cold war we were losing the space race which was really just the way to flex at each other who could launch a missile into the person's back yard and so and they already beat us they beat us with Sputnik the Sputnik the first person in orbit so we had to come out and do this and so that's why we've been back three times and that's it yeah just the US you know that right yeah the dark side of the moon they're trying to are they? yeah they are there's an international treaty right nobody could build a base on the moon I think we all sign that with a bunch of countries they'll probably rewrite it like everything else I thought I'm like why don't we just do it you know what I mean and then afterwards wasn't there like a movie where somebody like they had allowed it and then like they were doing these like corporate advertisements from the moon like directing it down and people are like I was like you can see that happening you imagine if we let someone by the moon yeah oh my god oh yeah they got like a big billboard like on the front of the moon it's all Tesla oh anyways I'm sorry I didn't mean to I just had to throw that out there because it was on my mind because he's got for the audience that didn't catch that because that's kind of an inside joke I got something fitness related for you guys well what made us the most money you know the food engineer yes the food engineer well I don't know man you know they just kidding I have no idea alright so let me see if I can find this and here it is alright I'm going to so I can get their name right okay a Canadian power lifter oh god and Andres oh god she crushed the power lifting record for her category is it a sheet by over 200 well I'll see you guys are in there do you know do you know that do you know that over listen over 200 something pounds for our audience the record for our audience has only been tuning in for two years or less it was four years ago now probably that long it was at least four years ago definitely not when it was popular to have this conversation right we had two transgender one transgender athlete and then and then a lawyer and their lawyer come on the show and we had a discussion about this being unfair this was when I think it first happened with like CrossFit I think first that's why yeah it was CrossFit yeah so they were trying to argue this is so this can I just say how crazy this is the most insane when I think to myself the world's lost its mind this is the number one thing that pops up because like you can be wrong and we can debate but if I could see some logic on what you're saying then I don't feel like I'm in a weird twilight zone this makes no this is no sense I'm sorry the reason why I'm bringing this up I watched the the untold story of Balco last night fucking so good too that was Bay Area when they yeah yeah yeah that's actually with the Bay Area that's what yeah so lab something co-op or something like that anyways the forget the name of the sprinter who broke the world the world Ben Johnson no no no not Ben Johnson he was you just copied that song Carl what's his last name Carl no no no he broke the fastest is he the one that he wasn't taking the clear I mean they all did they all ended up soon so let me fucking finish my story well you asked to try and finish it wrong okay so my point of why I brought this up and interesting that you bring up you brought up the transgender thing and then that was and I'm bringing up that conversation the point I made in that conversation was a study that I believe that you had brought up years before that when they asked these athletes if you know if they if you could guarantee them a gold medal but they would die five years later yeah how many of them would do it it was like an overwhelming like 80 something percent right like 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 of these athletes said if you could guarantee me a gold medal I would basically do whatever it takes I would be willing to die five years later just to say I've won that there's an interview with the the kid who decides to take steroids or just do this and he at that time he was like the second fastest person in the world and he was really close and he was all natural and he's talking about the justification and he was just like oh at that point if you told me that I was it was like I would do anything I would be willing to he said I would be willing to die to win that gold medal and so I've met people like this man the highest level there's they're all like it's a mentality yeah it's the male brain is a very interesting that's the thing like they'll go to the depths that a lot of people don't realize they'll go to to be able to be a champion come on we'll play one pro football game you are literally almost dying every game literally and the point that was made in that conversation that I said what makes you think if we allow this that you are not gonna see men start to do that with the intent purely like they're willing to change their sex because they wanna win so bad yep and I remember thinking like oh my god that's nobody would ever do that oh I would ever do that that's so like they thought that was so crazy that I would even say something like that and I just think that we're watching it unfold yep every day a new record is being broken it's insane you know what it is I'm gonna tell you we're gonna make everybody mad I here's this could get stopped real quick if you want to use but for some reason I don't understand why this one's scattering them but they need to organize because when they talk about or people talk about the patriarchy which makes me roll my eyes this is actually an example of of the patriarchy that they might try to define whereas men are coming in and trying to crowd women out I can't think of a more of a better example they're literally coming in this is power lifting by the way besides the fight biological advantages crazy this is power lifting just crushed a world record that had been standing for I don't know how many years by over 200 pounds you have women train their entire life trying to get to this particular goal and then this person comes in and blows it away and is standing on the podium like I won this is insane this is crazy it's gonna destroy women's sports I mean I saw the clip and the other two biological women were congratulating her of course so as long as I know but I mean before the group of feminists get together like you're saying it's got to start with the athletes that are competing either one refusing to compete all together or in moments like that choosing not to stand on the podium let me ask you guys a question do you think this would happen that's what I would do I was gonna ask you guys do you guys think this would happen if it was transgender athletes and girls were reversed and it was guys getting their asses kicked because they had a physical advantage and they were coming into the men's sport do you think that part of the reason why they're not saying anything is because they're trying to be agreeable and sometimes that's my point my point is nobody's fucking saying anything it's got to be the women that say something because the guys over here are saying this is crazy to be fair there are women that are saying things they just get censored and they get like pushed out of the media yeah so I mean it's just tough it's just a question that gets any kind of attention or any kind of airtime so yeah I don't I honestly there's it's hard for me to believe like most of what we see isn't just like a real majority of people left like that they're portraying on the internet like I think the majority has spoken through their dollar louder than anything else and you're seeing that in all kinds of other directions and there are a lot of countries and also organizations like even the Olympics have now banned you know the transgender angle to the sports coming in so it is happening yeah I really so I try not to get too like riled up over because I do know that obviously all these posts and things are designed to do that right to get us fired up and share talk about like we're doing I think we just made a big fucking mistake and didn't think about it I think we thought oh it'll be a couple people and you know our default is to be nice yeah I think most people like I just want to be nice I think it was a default like oh it's the way for us to be inclusive like there's no reason to isolate a handful of people I just don't think they I don't think they thought about it I don't think they sat down and realized like oh this could actually really shape and shift women's sports radically listen how stupid do you think people are that they didn't think about it there are fight sports mixed martial arts and where they're going in and beating the shit out of girls this is power lifting well just to play devil's advocates how many transgenders are you around not very many so it's not weird that you would think like I'll probably never see one in my town or my sport that doesn't mean you allow it just because you don't think it's going to happen you just think it's it's crazy you think it's going to be such a small minority that it's not going to make that big of an impact where clearly it is and I don't again I think it's an I think it's an honest mistake of leading so heavily too much credit I don't think it's an honest mistake at all I think it's you think it was like a strategy I think it's an ideology that has become a religion and people are afraid to oppose it because it places them on a side and everybody's been is literally playing along because there because there's a lot of cowards that are playing along I can't think of a more clear cut example there are things we could debate and discuss where there's some logic on this side this is like the most ridiculous and same thing that I've ever heard of my life so you're telling me that we have men in these categories why do they exist why have we always had these categories why is it always with us we know there's a tremendous we don't and it's like we need according to Neil grass to Tyson he says that we'll a hundred years from now we'll look back and think it's silly that we separated men and women sports did you see that no I didn't see that he's been he's been hard on that at full direction deep in bro well it's just in a world where what you say a lot of things that they think sound good but in reality in the real world what's then what ends up happening is you have girls losing scholarships girls out not placing in a in a ranking so they made a made top 10 now they're 11 because somebody knocked them out and it's it's messed up it's backwards it's so backwards for women women fought for years for sports for funding for sports where they wanted to play sports I think it does again I'm going to play devils out I agree with you it's just crazy it went this long well I think they just don't know what to do I think they're like what do we do and I think part of them was like maybe this is all maybe this is I think because it's like you want to live and let live that's fine if it's your choice to change genders but now to try and put it in an environment like this where everything is you know who's the best within this category and it's you know like male and female is a totally different set of variables that we're working with and so it's like it's not fair to the people that have signed up for that sport 100% 100% alright I got a cool study for you guys like crazy study amazing study as if we needed more to show how amazing strength training is a resistance but this one when it comes to your skin there's a lot of things that can improve your skin one of them which we now know for a fact is gut health and microbiome we know this for a fact right so there are lots of studies now that show that certain probiotics can dramatically for some people improve their skin with things like acne and dryness because you also have a microbiome on your skin and the gut and the skin microbiomes communicate so probiotics like like seed who we work with you know we've had people say that it improved their skin from taking anyway that's we've known that for a while exercise and how it affects the skin they did a study where they compared cardiovascular training to resistance training and skin resistance training kicked the crap at a cardiovascular at cardio at cardio both of them oxidative stress both of them improve the health of the skin but cardiovascular training actually thickened the like the collagen matrix that's in it that's what makes it look more plump and young strength training actually did that so it came out as like a really incredible way I feel like we kind of we kind of knew that right like when you like if you were to compare someone who's like lifted weight we know that versus like a marathon look like a marathon runner a lot of times look really old and weathered looking so I think I feel like there's now part of me used to think well is that because they're outside all the time and they still don't have the same still the same kind of look yeah yeah so what they found again was with resistance training factors like cytokines hormones and serum metabolites I mean it all changed for the positive and resistance training increased dermal by clikin which is BGN so this is something that kind of thickens the it's called dermal thickness and I think it has to do with the fact that my guess would be that strength training sends this systemic building signal to the body and collagen is a protein and so I'm imagining that the systemic like build signal is also telling the skin to build just like it tells more directly the muscles the I mean wouldn't you think it has something to do with mitochondria health like it's probably strengthening that which is like the hub of every cell yeah but that's all you get that from cardio cardio improved the skin too in the study but resistance training just also did this other thing where it built it it also built the skin so like as you get older your skin gets thinner and more like papery because the collagen starts to weaken and you start to lose that like almost like the muscle of it's not really muscle but the collagen in the skin so isn't that cool that is cool my favorite word you said was byplacan byplacan I can't say it it's BGN just think I thought I had it did you see the speaking about men and women and stuff like that this is something that I'll title you and you tell you if it's a guy or girl you can guess there was somebody who got caught getting caught on camera somebody was posting on social media they would sit around at book like bookstores and stuff wait for the person to read a book and then they get down the floor call up oh my god you showed me that video it's like the creepiest dude you're just like of course that's a dude these poor women dude it was like a library or a Barnes and Noble or something wait wait wait this guy's a sex offender and he's got caught so they sit down on a bench no so what she did is she set up a phone camera cause she's like this guy was following me around it's really weird and she posted it there up there and she's reading a book and then this guy kept following me everywhere she went and he pretended to be looking at books next to her and then she's like reading a book kinda turning around she doesn't see it cause it's getting recorded but then he kinda gets down on the floor and he like standing and he's kneeling behind her dude and he did it to somebody like on the other side she had the camera gone and like it shows him like going over there like doing a drive by sniffing yeah what what is wrong with dudes that's weird what would you do like if someone did that to you like would you just I'd be too like I'd blast them dude I would do my best to fart I so would do my best to but that's what they're maybe looking for but they might like he's got a multiple offender he's like a serial butt sniffer and I got like three videos of him on Tiktok with one he's bald when he's got hair he's done this a few times and he's finally been arrested did they arrest him? yeah yeah but he got let out this guy needs to like hire somebody what's the charges he got let out I don't remember I know what are you doing if you're not touching them yeah you're not touching anybody is that really is that really against the wall to sniff butts I don't think it is it's insanely creepy and invasive but I mean I don't know I mean if you don't is there like a perimeter that you're allowed to hear somebody to be creepy it's touch so maybe if he doesn't touch and he's just smelling ugh I know they just need a big boyfriend to see that I mean I would be confused wouldn't you be confused I'd be like what are you doing well isn't it kind of the same as like the panty vending machines where you get dirty panties I don't know how you point at Doug do you remember that remember that the information remember that finish you own Doug for the record I've actually never seen one of those machines he travels to Japan once I've looked for him but I haven't found him what's in here he goes out there he stalks it obviously he's an expert on all that he goes with two suitcases and everyone in his truck drug consensual though those are yeah that's not the same I mean isn't it the same no because you're buying them people are selling them to you're not sneaking up behind somebody but I mean the drive for it oh probably yeah right I mean the same the same thing that makes the guy put his credit card in to get dirty panties out of a vending machine has to be the same drive that gets the guy to get down on his knees at Barnes & Noble it's probably same but less of a drive the other guy's like he's going for it he's motivated yeah he's in the wild who's worse who's worse the guy doing it to actual people I know worse so there was an actually a local like story I was like watching the news and there was a guy that got caught who was actually in one of these like I don't know if it was a bookstore or not but it was definitely a store there you go like this is it right in the middle right in the middle thanks this is a real friend I got you bro yeah I can't see because his mic's always in front of his face he's always his mic is always like right here so this guy's teeth was caught right and he actually oh there was like a Pete's coffee he was inside the toilet I think he moved it in his middle of his teeth it went back in it went back in it ruined my story I didn't see it before but now I see it let me see it now it's gone okay hold on he was in the toilet inside the toilet and a porta potty it was one of them that was like you could literally crawl down in there like a honey bucket and was just sitting there just watching in a porta potty I don't know if it was a porta potty it was definitely a bathroom that he could crawl into so whether it's the only thing he could crawl into it's gotta be that's disgusting by the way it's like the worst thing I've ever heard I think that there's been multiple accounts of people doing that where they get caught and the cops have to show up and then yeah that's gotta be the most freaky thing ever really I don't know Doug Google it man caught inside come on Andrew toilet of porta potty inside toilet and look up Santa Cruz because I tell you that's where it happened I'm not lying dude that is you gotta you gotta respect the the drive okay so there is a peeper they called him a peeper who hid in portable toilets gets a three year sentence okay so it does happen so there's that one yeah I found I'm finding you know he's a camera oh yeah that makes more sense well hey Doug found out somebody actually did there's somebody actually did that yeah yeah that sat inside the the debris if you will the level of the level of you guys wanted to know something worse creepy that's worse yeah that's definitely you win there right so I think that takes the cake first first I don't know if I necessarily think the Barnes & Novel Sniffer is worse than the the vending machine you know Doug thing you're still there huh stop associating stop associating even that alright no it's worse because it's actually a physical thank you Doug airspace violation yeah yeah it was just the vending machine what law is that you're telling me I mean if I was some had somebody coming behind me and smelling my butt yeah I would think that'd be far worse than somebody putting yeah it's more vending machine invasive I guess what do you mean you guess I mean the dude who gets in the vision he's probably rather over no but there's nobody there yeah also it was the willing I see you justify this nest to to provide those hey you know nobody got hurt that guy is totally normal totally normal for someone to do that Doug what did you say Doug he always goes dark too far I know alright let's get back to health and fitness okay so I saw a post by Dr. Ndalski he wrote a post about cgm's actually I should pull it up I saw it yeah so let's see did you send it to me yeah I sent it I sent to you when you were I think you were sick at home try to put you to work still yeah yeah but on there it's basically talking about he's talking shit about Peter Atea that's actually what I did we were just we just gave a shout out I think to Peter Atea and we're talking about him and then that happened to pop in my feed I read it he's clowning on fitness people like Peter Atea recommending cgm's cgm's to healthy non-diabetic people cause he's saying that it's useless it's taking not only that but it's taking them away from people who need them who have diabetes and stuff like that take it away things one cgm's with a coach we now have experience very valuable very valuable because of the individual variance in terms of how you respond to different foods if you have a coach there that'll help you connect the dots between how you feel and low blood sugar high blood sugar or how foods affect you it's gonna help you modify your behaviors and we have now data we have a company called Nutrosense that we work with their success rate is insane compared to the average success rate with diet listen we talk about one of the number one things that we talk about as a massive hurdle and I'd love to debate this clown about this like he's learning to help people become aware of how food affects them they're so disconnected from their bodies people eat foods shit themselves and not even realize it was because of that food that's how disconnected the average American is a cgm helps make that connection for a lot of people of how their body is responding to all the cravings yes and any tool that can help a client make that connection for themself so they can better in turn have better long term behaviors is an incredible tool now do I think that every one of my clients has to have that no it's a nice to have it's not of course we've been changing lives long before cgm tools were out there for people so no it's not necessary at all but man it's fucking cool and it's a very useful tool is he trying to say that they're in low supply like inventory wise that was part of it too and so here's the other side of the argument is that some some truth to that because I find that very hard to believe I've never heard NutriSense say they're sold out because there's the totally different market for that no and I think and here's that exactly so that's the point I want to make which is if you want cgms to be smaller cheaper and easier to get the best way to do that is to create a larger demand for that product because when the money comes in and there's a large innovation this is the same guy we called out like years ago when he first hit social media and was telling people to drink shakes to lose weight instead of food oh lord no no cgms with a coach can be extremely valuable and again if you're worried about taking them away from other people like the more people that go and buy these and use these the more the markets can respond the more innovative they're going to get the cheaper they're going to get and that's just how markets work it's not like this end supply nobody's trying to produce more it's not that it's not that it's not that complicated it's not it's not necessary that you have a my fitness pal app or a fat secret app it's not necessary that you have an aura ring or a fit bit it's not necessary that you have tools that are useful man yeah and as a coach a trainer who's been doing this long enough that I had none of those tools and then I now have access to all of those tools they happen to be some of the better tools there's a lot of gimmicky tools that are in the fitness space that have come and went over the last two decades that I've been training people and most of them are garbage and shit every once in a while something that is actually really valuable and useful comes along and it's like whoa this is something steps closer towards precision you know when you get like valid data that actually shows you like insightful information about behaviors that your client has you know now I can actually have a little bit more accurate advice to move the needle so you know that's ridiculous another example too of another it's a Ph.D. fitness dork attacking another good fitness person Peter T. is by my opinion one of the most respected guys in our space as far as the information that he consistently puts out there even if he communicates something different than us overall we would agree on 99% of the stuff that he puts out there so here you are attacking somebody who is one of the good guys in the space like just dumb dumb not helping anybody 100% alright I have a shout out for today's episode how about a reverse shout out don't follow that guy oh yeah negative shout out how do you really feel can we do a reverse shout out stop following him that's what we're telling you to do I'm kidding no no shout out to I just saw this page for the first time today and I was dying already followed him and Justin's been known so it's Anthony Vincent official was this the rock guy yeah dude and it's like I'll crash you dude this is so normal motivational this is so adjusted yeah it's like bro you work out you look good bro you look good yeah it's like metal just look big it's awesome yeah I'll send this to your friends I sent one to my my wife earlier today pump up one of your friends yeah good stuff look if you need a snack and you're on the go but you still want to hit some protein you want something healthy something that's not going to make you unhealthy go to paleo valley they have meat sticks that are incredible they're high in protein only grass fed beef they also have pork and chicken it's great stuff they taste good they're not dry and again they've got a good amount of protein go check them out go to paleo valley dot com that's p a l e o valley dot com forward slash mine pump use the code mine pump 15 for 15% off your first order alright back to the show our first caller is Erin from California hey Erin how can we help you hi thank you so much I just want to thank you guys for all the wisdom that you guys provide I have soaked it all up and gotten into peptides I think I'm a better mom and a better fitness instructor because of you so thank you awesome right on thank you alright so my question is about goals the kind that keep you going after you've been in the gym for decades or you've been an athlete so I never struggle getting to the gym I actually look forward to going to sleep at night because I can wake up and go to the gym in the morning but after decades of being in the gym there is a monotony to it so I always crave little challenges whether it's you know I'll work towards pull up for a month or push ups or eating challenges or whatever just to fit up for myself to keep things interesting but I've kind of run out of them and you know lifting heavy the more I if I try to lift much heavier than I'm already lifting that's when I start to injure myself so I don't know if anybody can relate to wanting to have some challenges some benchmarks to set themselves up for while also staying really safe and not hurting myself so the idea of hitting like a big one rep max is not interesting to me but I want to combat boredom I would like to get a little stronger I've heard you guys mention a few calculations based on body weight and lifts and I don't know if maybe that's a good place to start Yeah, this is you're actually the right person to ask this question because you've been doing this for so long you're obviously very fit you said decades how long have you been exercising consistently for I mean it feels like my whole life I mean it was an athlete a swimmer growing up and I've been in the gym for a couple decades Yeah, awesome Yeah, you're the right person to ask this question because when a beginner asks this question the conversation is a lot different for someone like you there's a couple things that I like to emphasize or point out one is that at some point the trying to hit goals model is going to have to shift because it just it just doesn't work after a while and I'll give you an example you talk about strength like hitting a PR getting stronger is an amazing goal the first three years or so of exercise but after a while lifting more weight the risk versus reward just isn't worth it like for someone like yourself you're obviously you've been worked out for a long time adding 10 pounds to a lift isn't going to give you much in terms of any better progress but it's going to dramatically increase your risk of injury and so it just it's just not worth it so that's one example right so at some point you want to shift your mentality to just the enjoyment of the workout for the sake of the workout itself now that being said I do also kind of understand what you're talking about things to train towards or specific types of ways to feel or things to aim for because it does give us a little bit of purpose behind what we're doing and I would say this for someone like yourself look at the entire breadth of of health and health wellness and fitness it's a massive sphere now it includes obvious things like stamina flexibility strength it also includes less obvious things like completely new exercises you've never really gotten good at in the past that's a good one like you could try a movement you've never done before like maybe an old school movement like a one-armed bent press or a suitcase carry or something or a Zoppmann you know squat or deadlift exercises and movements that people typically don't do you could pick one of those you're not good at it because you've never done it before so I'm gonna get better at it do the prerequisites do the mobility and practice this new movement that I'm not good at so I could build the skill and then along with that comes some pretty cool results then there's even less obvious things like okay and this is something that we tend to get stuck in when we've been doing this a long time is there tends to be areas of health and wellness that we tend to ignore because we don't like it as much it's more challenging maybe we want to avoid those for me for example it might be mindfulness it might be you know more recovery based type training I tend to avoid that because it's either boring or because I don't like what comes up for me when I do them but that would be a great place to aim because it's somewhere where I could improve so I might say okay I need to work more on mindfulness you know I don't sit and meditate ever or I don't ever do anything like yoga so maybe I'll put that in and make that more of a focus because I know that's something that you need to make yourself to look towards look towards the areas you tend to not look maybe pick new exercises you've never done before try to get better at them and then in the entire process try to get into the headspace of just enjoying it for the sake of of doing it yeah I think a lot of times that is kind of a challenge right to think about what what that looks like and how you're going to program how you're going to attack that and so I think between the three of us this has been our focus when we come up with new concepts for programs and really it's just to kind of stay ahead of that curve that natural kind of time where you start to plateau and you know you may sort of get into that that area where it is getting a bit mundane but there's so many different aspects to fitness there's so many different pursuits you can move towards and so to to be honest with yourself I think in terms of like your patterns I can say okay what are my most drawn towards and what do I do the most often and then when you start looking at that and then look elsewhere and see what what else is available so if that's whether that's like the opposite go the opposite direction literally like go the opposite direction like really challenge yourself to be uncomfortable and I mean that's really the to sum it up this is such a this is such a good place to be I think this is what we're talking about right where you've been training for decades getting to the gym is not a problem it's a part of your lifestyle you absolutely love it you're you're healthy you're fit you like where your physique is at but this is the same spot that all of us are in I mean what you're what you're experiencing is I feel like I go through this twice a year every year it's like man I've been doing that for so long it's like I'm already proven I can get super ripped I've already proven so and so what both Justin and Sal are alluding to which is you have to be honest with yourself and say what do I tend to gravitate towards like what type of training do I love to do the most and look in the opposite direction the thing that Sal's alluding to would be like you know he loves to get really really strong doesn't care to do mobility stuff very much so that's an area you should lean into unconventional training like the stuff that Justin loves to do I don't do enough of that movements and exercises that he loves to do into my routine like so really ask yourself what is it what is it that you do the most of and lean into the most and then look at other aspects of training and lean into that and try and get good at and if you have kind of athletic competitive mindset be competitive about it there's nothing wrong with that like a couple years ago I got on this like Turkish get up kick like I remember the first time Justin taught me a Turkish get up I'd already been a trainer for 15 plus years I started to do one and then I thought man I want to get good at this and then slowly was and that's such a complex movement that I spent a solid year just progressing and getting better at every piece of that movement so find something like that find something that you're not good at or you don't do a lot of it lean into it if you haven't already gone through have you looked at all the different math programs because I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to give I have and I have I'm actually in maps anabolic advanced right now and it's so perfect what you're saying so I almost felt silly asking the question it's like you know get out of here lady like you're happy where you're at but I I appreciate this advice so much because the recovery days are a huge challenge for me like I found myself cheating and adding more things in and not totally just devoting myself that would be a huge challenge for me would be to comply and learn to enjoy that more Aaron you're the reason why you're the perfect person to ask this question is because sometimes people most of the time I should say people ask this question because they need something or they feel like they need something to get them in the gym and so then the conversation is very different it's like look you need to get out of this motivation mindset that's not going to keep you consistent it's got to be more like no matter what we say right now whether you figure out a new goal or not you're probably never going to stop you've been doing this for so long so this is a good question coming from someone like you because you're really just like I like this anyway and how can I make this more fun and enjoyable and what other avenues can I look to so I'm going to make some assumptions and you tell me if I'm on point I'm going to guess that you really like lifting weights you really like traditional cardio and you probably have a tendency towards doing more versus doing less is that am I on point? 100% accurate and I'm going to guess you probably haven't gone on a legit bulk in a long time with calories you're probably are pretty good about your diet you like to maintain a lean physique when's the last time you intentionally tried to bulk nope okay so listen to my show well our friends Brett and Shalene turned me on to you so few months but I've been going back and pretty much listening to as many in a day as I can okay so you okay and then besides that you have a lot of good fitness wisdom you just been doing this for a while I could tell just from talking to you so if you are willing to submit okay to advice which requires a lot of courage and a lot of wisdom which you have around fitness then I'm going to recommend that you go on a bulk with your calories and I'm going to recommend you start training in completely different ways I want you to start training with a functional mindset I want you to use more of sleds in your training performance I want you to do more lateral stability type of training I want you to do mobility specific type of work and then on your days off this probably is the part you're going to hate the most I would like for you to some kind of a mindfulness practice like yin yoga or meditation or something along those lines and don't approach it like a workout because you could very easily turn yoga into a workout but go into it and work in not work out okay and try that once a week just try that once a week for someone like you I think you would get tremendous benefit from something like that because you probably always teeter on the line of you know, overdoing it so those would be the things that I would recommend the bulk by itself by the way if you did nothing else but just increase your calories I think you'd blow your mind over how you felt I think increasing the calories and moving to a program like mass performance would be really good it's probably different and unique enough that you're going to find some exercises in there that you're not familiar with that you don't probably train a lot or have done ever possibly paired with mobility days in there paired with increasing calories I think you'll get now and then the true test is going to be the mental part can you stay true to it and follow it through trust us that we're pointing you in the right direction and I think if you do those things you go through that program I think you'll be very happy with the way you feel and look afterwards so that would be my recommendation totally 100% do you know what your body fat percent you look like you're sitting in the mid to teens or so do you know yeah that's yeah I think that's alright okay so I would go on a bulk until you get to about 19 20% body fat and you know have the strength gains that come along with it see what happens to your energy libido and hormones along the way I think you're going to feel really remarkably good with it embrace the a little extra body fat by the way 19% is still very lean so you'll just going to you're not going to gain a belly or anything like that you're just going to feel probably more invigorated and healthy from going on that type of a bulk so start there do the program and I think you're going to I think you'll really enjoy what it you know how you feel but you're going to have to kind of submit a little bit to the advice so I don't know that might be the hard part Doug will send you over maps performance so you get that that's so nice and I really do trust you and so I'm going to do this thank you so much oh follow up yes please follow up I'd love to hear how things are going the next couple months thank you so much guys thanks Aaron bye I've had a few clients that fit this almost specific she reminds me of my old partner my old partner Tony yeah just like that tell me have the discipline have the yeah also who came later on became a coach and trainer herself and like tell me tell me that putting someone like this on a 400, 500 calorie surplus doesn't just blow if they can do it doesn't just blow their mind it comes out how they feel easily yeah she'll feel great and again we'll be able to you know get strength and she probably didn't realize she had potential to get yeah you know not enough people I think realize that eventually you get to this point like if you've been doing this for long enough this becomes probably what I know she was like I don't know if anybody can relate to me like I actually think it's way more common than you would think with somebody who's there that's not most people are trying to look for excuses to be motivated they need a challenge just to get to the gym super disciplined yeah she's already proven that she's just kind of like I've kind of done everything it's like what do I do next which is a very similar feeling that most trainers and coaches go through that have been fitness fanatics for two decades plus and so that's where you start searching and you know asking and being honest with yourself what are the things that I gravitate to do this because this is a challenge I don't know if a lot of people understand this except for maybe fitness fanatics it is a challenge to move outside of your discipline structure you know whatever you tend to do because it's new and I don't like it as much and I really like what I do it's been working for you for a long time it's been working the one thing that used to work really well for me I don't know about you guys but for me was whenever I would take another course a certification that would bring me on this modality or training style or way of fitness that then I would be interested enough to reignite your passion again yes and I think that's that's an important factor in the whole long game approach is like where can I find those opportunities to spark some passion again to get me kind of training differently I wish I remember how long it took like when I had these like the Turkish get up when I went on the mobility kick like when I make that switch because I know it's not fun when I first make it it's like it's monotonous it's like I don't feel like I'm seeing much return nobody likes sucking right in the beginning yeah I'm not good at it it's so but then it does switch over and at some point you start to unlock something that you hadn't seen before you know like the the first time I watched myself like perform the Turkish get up really well or add significant weight or get really good and see boy that gets exciting yeah because then it reignites that that early passion of like seeing the results for the first time and your body changing when you first got into training and so if you can stick with it and be consistent and trust the process I think what you did is you moved your identity from I'm this let's say bodybuilder to I'm the fitness guy that likes to try different things and learn new things you move your identity into something like that then it becomes what you want I think that's a good you have to like almost let the old you die off 100% of who you think you are change your identity and be like now I'm going to become the awesome Turkish get up girl I'm going to become this 100% and you have to like buy in right our next caller is Kevin from Pennsylvania Kevin what's happening how can we help you how much thanks for taking my call guys you guys alright hey I before I ask my question I have to say being similar to your age I really enjoy the banter and the throwback stories that's kind of what got me hooked on your podcast so alright old guys alright easy there easy the last generation you get the feelings hurt all the time somebody gets her references like I appreciate that I know this this question is a bit of a repeat I've seen it on your show before but I'm a health and phys ed teacher been doing it for about 20 years now but recently about two years ago started a strength conditioning course specifically for kids who want to get stronger and in the weight room my problem and my struggle is that there's such a variety of ability level I have a mixture of girls and boys a typical class is 40 minutes 20 to 25 students but they range from inexperience never touched a weight before to they've lifted with their team for years and you know in their mind they think they're experts and so to program I have them all school year long which is great and usually if they stick with it I have them from 10 to 12th grade so my question is you know how do you overcome those programming issues with such a variety of ability levels this has to be one of the hardest hardest things to do well you know what it is first of all it's a great question so what it is Kevin the reason why it's challenging you know this for the audience you got all these kids in your class you got a wide range of mobility issues strength I'm sure you have some athletes you have some couch potatoes you have some kids with forward shoulder some you know anterior pelvic probably have some kids that can't even hold themselves together like what do I do so the mentality needs to change in your approach for the class if you approach the class and say I got to give them a workout for 40 minutes you're never going to be able to accomplish what you're trying to do because you're not going to be able to give them a complete workout in 40 minutes what you're doing with 25 students instead you need to approach it like I'm teaching them in the process of teaching them something they're going to get some exercise so okay what does that look like one exercise one movement is the focus of the class and what you want to do is break down the movements into a squat a press a row a hinge some kind of rotation movement and a split stance movement so you have five type and there's so many exercises that fall into those categories and so what I would do is today's class we're going to perfect the back step lunge or today's class we're going to perfect a hip hinging movement known as a Romanian deadlift or a deadlift or in today's class we're going to perfect the overhead carry or overhead press or in today's class we're going to try perfecting a row of some type a one-arm dumbbell row or a band row and that's it and in the class what you do with the movement is you break that movement down into five or six different steps so you sit with the class and you go okay, step one is the placement of the bar for example and then everybody's doing it and you're walking around you're perfecting it hold this stay tight here stay right there I'm going to walk over here and then the next part of the movement is you're going to sit down with control or whatever so that's what the class kind of exercise some side of the strength training strength training excuse me but what you're doing is you're teaching them the technique and the movement and you're teaching them body awareness and I borrow this off of really effective jiu-jitsu instructors that I've seen jiu-jitsu instructors when they're teaching a class have to rent something similar and I've seen jiu-jitsu instructors teach six different moves in a class and some people get them a lot of people don't the really effective ones will take one movement and the entire class is I'm breaking down that movement into six different pieces and perfecting each piece and those instructors man they turn out students that learn so effectively so that would be my approach if I was in a position like this yeah I actually have a lot of thoughts around this going through that whole process with high school kids for football training specifically because it was a very wide arraignment of different abilities in there so I had to really rack my brain how am I going to approach this to bring value and also be able to give those other kids in there that do have experience at least something that they can progress with and work on and train with and one thing in the beginning just to get everybody sort of grouped together was isometrics are amazing for at least starting to get them to organize their body and hold positions effectively and this is something you can kind of work in with the group whether that's with mobility drills or whether that's just holding these type of isometric poses and you can get competitive with that and challenge them with more intensified versions of that but the main point I want to drive here is that because you have such a wide array one thing that I sort of moved towards at the end of when I was training them was to group them up and to split it off with the more experienced kid became the leader of that group and that way they want that responsibility of also being able to help and provide and teach some of these other kids some of these moves and it helped to kind of bring up their confidence and also to like they got a lot more out of it because they felt a bit more responsibility I think that's actually brilliant I wouldn't even have thought to do that but then to probably break off in a handful of groups and pick who you think are the most skilled to lead those groups which what's great about that is now you can you can regress the movements and not feel like you lose them because you're giving them a teaching role totally so they feel like that's a great idea you know what I'm saying I love that yeah so they don't feel otherwise they're going to be like this is lame you can get bored and frustrated so Justin what about like for Kevin if he if you envision like our map symmetry program would you like give me like an idea of like would you do like in a a workout or a day right he's got probably a 50 minute class with them would you do like two or three isometrics as an an entire group yeah and like to take us all through like two or three isometrics they could be related to if you're teaching like one of the complex movements like so we had squat was like our main focus for the day like we would do maybe two isometric movements to you could you could kill two birds with one stone with that in terms of like having them hold poses and even a lunge stance and having them hold that pose and then having them actually go work on the squat by itself as its own specific skill that you're trying to develop for that workout okay so that would be one thing but yeah we do have that structure pretty nicely in in symmetry and that was kind of like a little bit of motivation of it as well as like you know how do we address the fact that like a lot of people can are all over the place like they have an even they don't have much control over their body to begin with and so you can actually keep a good eye on you know who actually has depth who's you know knees are buckling and you can walk around and you can kind of cue a little bit more effectively when you have it you know at a nice slow tempo I mean even doing just pause reps right if you wanted to to have that as like the progression you start isometric go to pause rep and then you do exactly what Sal said just stick with the main focused exercises that are are going to you know move the needle the most two things Kevin one do you do you have map symmetry yet no I have anabolic and performance footage I'll have Doug send symmetry so you have access to that so you can pull from some of the movements that we have in there I think that'll be valuable to second thing did you ever happen to listen to I don't know how long you'd be listening to us did you listen to the interview that Justin did with Joe Defranco I did not okay so that's on Joe Defranco's podcast so look up Justin Andrews from Mind Pump on Joe Defranco's podcast a lot of depth they had a really good conversation around training you know high school athletes you know and how to accomplish that and Joe's been doing this longer than all of us I'd say he's kind of he's brilliant he's the guru yeah and so I actually really enjoyed that conversation hearing that his perspective and Justin and him kind of ping-ponging back and forth on the challenges of training kids I think you'll get a lot of value from that episode so listen to that episode pull from map symmetry and hopefully what we kind of threw at you gives you some some sort of help but you are doing the Lord's work that is probably recognized yeah I do have it I have a chance to get in the classroom every so often too and I really enjoyed the resistance training revolution do you think Sal that would be a book that I could use oh yeah at a high school level to develop a curriculum 100% I wrote it I wrote it specifically so that it was easy to understand for the average person and it's not written necessarily bro that would be awesome to break up the chapters in a year to break up the chapters and teach that would be awesome the thing to keep in mind Kevin the real the big thing to keep in mind is when you know there's a there's a bit of a difference in what you're doing because you're not training an athletic team you're training students who are taking this class as part of their curriculum when you're training athletic team although some of the challenges are the same one of the differences is that they signed up for a sport they know what they're training for and they all in your class are probably like well I'm here I'm doing it I don't play football I play baseball like what are we doing here so you know I volunteered to teach some classes years ago and so of course I went in and talked fitness and I found I was way more effective when I was able to sell what I was doing before the class started and so the way I would present strength training was I would and I look at the whole class you got a whole group of people so I talk about the benefits of building strength some of these other people want to improve their performance academically I'm going to bring up a study that shows how you can you improve cognitive function I'm going to talk about hormones how it balances out hormones I'm going to talk about how balancing hormones out clears up your skin why am I doing that because I know there's some girls in there for example that'll ring what we're going to do here's what it works on here's some of the benefits that happen to the body as backed up by some of these studies and then I know I'd sell a majority on the students on wanting to try and then I would take the class and I would teach them and the side effect being that they're doing some exercise versus I have a class of kids who's there to work out then it's a little bit of a different focus but if you go in there trying to work them out it's going to be really challenging for you because you're going to have it's going to be so hard to work them out properly because some are going to be good some are not going to be so good so it's really about if they have a why behind it they tend to do much better 100% we all have a lot of passion in this direction too about impacting the generation coming up so I tell you what Kevin if you whatever you put together if you want us to look at it and give critiques or add or take away from anything and send to us I'd be more unwilling to look at it with the guys and kind of put our two cents in but I think you're heading in the right direction 100% yeah great a lot of great advice thank you very much you got it man alright Kevin good luck man alright thanks if I if I hardest thing ever if I didn't do this that's probably what I would do really? yeah I would probably work with I'd pull out the last bit of hair I would work either with high school students or college students and not athletes but every day regular kids and really try to convert them into figuring this out and implementing there's a lot cool you get them I'll take the athlete yeah I would not I would wear other athletes too yeah kids because you brought up something that's so true is like you have a class of they're there because they have to be oh yeah there's a good chance probably 30% of them don't want to be listen I remember specifically volunteering classes they were 5th and 6th grade and I'm sitting there and I remember the first one I did I'm trying to teach them stuff and I could see half of them were interested I'm like I got to sell these kids on why they got to do this so I'm like what are these kids interested in someone want to build strength and muscle some of them want to get leaner I'm going to talk a little bit about metabolism some of them probably want to be better at schoolwork I'm going to bring up a study about what would attract most of these kids when I did that the buy-in was there oh that's the best approach just like he said like they need the why and I think that's brilliant that he thought of your book because it really does like outline like all of these benefits totally which a lot of kids just don't realize because it's not being taught our next caller is Steven from the UK Steven what's happening how can we help you alright guys how you doing good good yeah I've been listening to a podcast for a few months really enjoy it I've been doing it myself so a lot of what you talk about is very relevant to myself awesome yes so yeah I kind of I've I've titled the email plateau and I kind of feel like that's where I'm at now bit of background about myself I've been training sort of inconsistently for five plus years and consistently for the last 18 months and during COVID as many people did I kind of stopped all training ate everything inside and put on a lot of weight and ended up around about sort of 105 kilos and then over the last sort of 18 months I've lost all of that and got down to sort of 80 kilos and so you know had some pretty good progress week on week always sort of seeing changes and stuff like that and so that was kind of through resistance training more focused on my diet and and working with personal training and doing my own stuff and my goal was kind of to get down to where I had visible abs and and then from there I was going to kind of you know increase the calories push on and try and build some muscle really and but kind of the last sort of three months or so I've kind of stopped seeing any any changes I've sent you guys some pictures but yeah I kind of got down to that point I was constantly seeing changes and then the last three months I feel like not much has been changing and my instant reaction was to drop the calories which you know seems like everyone always kind of goes to that and from listening to you guys that's probably not the answer and so I'm just looking for a bit of advice really on how I can kind of kick on push on and and where do I go from here Steven give me a little insight on your training volume like how how many days a week are you training in the gym would you say you're relatively intense the way you train and then I think I see you're aiming around 2,000 calories so give me a little insight on what your training looks like yeah that's it so I tend to do three to four days a week and I have been doing a push pull leg split for quite a while now the training is pretty intense it's good training I also play soccer or football as we call it over here sort of once a week as well so do a little bit of cardio through that but it's primarily just you know strength training Steven so real quick reading your question and you know kind of you've lost what 25 kilos he's lost a lot of weight he's done well 60 pounds almost yeah so and through that has that been a consistent like that whole process you've been focused on the weight loss that entire time you're plateauing because it's time to reverse yeah it's time to bulk that's the bottom line I mean you actually look great bro yeah you've done incredible work you need to go on a little bit of a bulk you need to go in a calorie surplus and start focusing on gaining muscle and you know what's probably gonna happen Steven is you're probably gonna get leaner yeah through that remember body fat percentage is means it's a percentage of your body weight it's how much body fat you have as a percentage of your body weight so let's say you went on a good bulk and did some good strength training and let's say you gained five kilos of lean body mass right that's a lot it's like 12 pounds for people listening let's say you gained five kilos of lean body mass and you've lost zero body fat in terms of the amount of pounds okay or amount of kilos you're now leaner though because you have more body mass so your body fat is a lower percentage now of your total body mass that's probably what will happen if you do a proper reverse diet a proper bulk so 2,000 calories a day you know guy your size doing that much activity it's kind of low yeah I want you around 2,500 I'd put you up 500 calories keep the protein high keep it there for a little while bump it up again a little bit maybe 100, 200 calories get yourself up to closer to 3,000 calories or higher and then attempt doing a cut again and then you'll see it'll start to happen yeah I'd love to see you at 2,500 calories I'd love to send you put you on maps anabolic switch you from the split to kind of a full body routine the two of those things combine I think it's going to be great for you and then the goal would be I'd start you at 2,500 in maps anabolic the goal would be to like slowly increase calories to get you over 3,000 to get you up to 3,000 plus calories before I bring you back down the other way so if I give and then then we're in a very sweet spot bro because you look great you've done great but this is super common when somebody has a lot of weight to lose is eventually what happens is they get to a place where they're not all the way to their goal but the good news is you're calling us right now you were only pushing at 2,000 I see people that do crazy shit where they're pushing down to 1,100 calories they're doing cardio every day and you're at the right place right now to go the other direction like Sal's saying and I think you'll see tremendous benefit the main thing was going to be which is almost always with somebody in your situation is the mental piece the initial bump in calories and training that is going to put on a little bit of weight most of it's going to be water you'll gain 2 or 3 kilos right out the gates of just water don't freak out you're not going to put on all that body especially if you make good choices obviously if you go and you start eating a bunch of crap but you make good whole food choices with those extra calories and train maps anabolic and I swear to God you're going to feel great yeah because the other option is this is you just cut your calories even more but then you're going to end up around 1,500 or 1,300 calories and I'm going to tell you right now you probably still will plateau with your body fat percentage what will happen is you might lose muscle along with the body fat you're getting into the calorie range now where keeping muscle becomes very difficult because you might have someone who's like well I just cut your calories but your body is probably going to try to reach homeostasis by reducing muscle mass so you might lose weight on the scale but your body fat might actually stay the same and how shitty of a position would that be you lost another 3 or 4 kilos but your body fat is the same that's not really a good trade so reverse diet and focus on getting stronger and then once you get your calories up to a certain point both Adam and I agree around 3,000 then you can cut from there and then getting leaner will be easy it's interesting that you recommend that because actually a couple of weeks ago I increased the calories and I felt so much stronger in the gym as a result you know like all of my lists have been going up considerably of course, yeah your testosterone is going to go up your strength is going to go up your energy is going to go up remember here's the thing too that people don't consider let's say you bump your calories 500 and you don't increase your activity level but you get stronger guess what you've done without realizing it you've increased the volume of your training remember volume is sets times reps, times weight so even though this is where people get confused as they look at their work out but my workouts is exactly the same it is not you've added 3 reps here 4 reps there 10 pounds here 15 pounds there you're training more volume just because you got stronger meaning you're fueling your body to be able to burn more calories even in your workouts so it's just a better it's not a better approach it's the only approach like I said if you do it the other way you're going to fail so bump them up again you're in a good place bro you're going to do good just add those calories be consistent with it and you're going to be solid the only thing the thing I'm watching for if you were my client is rapid weight gain and not strength that'll be if you just eat a bunch of garbage if you eat trash you have the 500 calories in there there's a chance that you don't get stronger and you put on bad weight but if you make good whole food choices and stay consistent with the training you should get stronger in the gym and we shouldn't put on that much weight don't add a pint and go to the chip shop and that's how you're going to add your calories it's quite difficult to add calories cleanly though I've been able to do it but it's very easy to jump to a pizza or something like that just to increase the calories that's not the way to do it one of the easiest ways to do it I don't know obviously if I had your diet in front of me I could show you some real easy but a lot of times I catch people that are low calorie like this doing things like egg whites or chicken breast just eat fattier eat fattier choices give yourself some tri-tip or give yourself or hamburger or hamburger every once in a while give yourself some whole eggs or throw an ounce of cheese or put some olive oil on your vegetables there's easy ways for you to bump without going the extreme other direction too yeah awesome all right Stephen Doug's going to send that maps in a bulk your way yes Billy thanks very much guys you got it thank you stay light you guys like my cultural my culturally relevant I was waiting for some no that's too obvious yeah the the chip shop my wife my wife my wife's family's from England so every once in a while I hang out with them and I hear them talk and I'm like oh yeah forgot you guys say that kind of stuff you and your pick up a couple lingo I did it all for real he's a great man what a great transformation already by the way expected what happened to him is expected if I was training him I know this point is going to happen we're going to have to reverse it yeah in fact you what you would have done a little bit earlier oh yeah I would have reversed reversed and broke up the the long diet that he's been on but I tell you what they'll all in all I mean I love when I hear stories like this and people that have been listening to podcasts because he's asking and making the decision at the right time like he didn't go add three four days of hour long cardio and cut it down to 15 because and by the way all those things would result in him continuing to lose more weight like he could have went to 1500 calories and we by the way could be quick advice like if you wanted to drop another five pounds it'd be like hey bro go five days a week an hour cardio now and drop down to 1500 calories you'll get you'll lose weight but you'll probably end up losing as much muscle as you did as you did body fat and then you're in a place that's not sustainable where body is asking him to to get more calories right now the next caller is Jennifer from North Carolina hi Jennifer how can we help you hi guys so I have you guys read the emails that we send in first so you know what the background is yeah we do no no we do but we want you to tell us those people watching okay all right so I'm 51 I am in the process of going to menopause and so I've been overweight my entire life I used to like in high school like so we're talking like 30 plus years ago I used to run and do exercise and everything like that but insulin resistance metabolic blah blah blah whatever you want to call it so bariatric surgery was recommended to me actually 11 years ago but I decided against it and continued to struggle with my weight I finally did get the surgery last September so we're coming up on my one year anniversary of that my surgeon's not happy with me because I am not losing weight as quickly as he would like for me to do but I told him from the very beginning I would rather lose it slowly because then I don't have as much loose skin that I have to worry about so it was total vanity on my part but anyway so the weight is coming off I started at over 300 pounds the last time I weighed myself I was 303 I did gain weight after that but you know I never weighed myself again so I am now updated letters since that email updated numbers sorry since that email I am now down to 215 and my I do have in body scans that I do with my nutritionist and so let's see I think yeah my lean body mass is now 128.8 instead of 123 from the email so yeah so the question is two of them basically how much protein should I be getting because bariatric lifestyle and sports nutrition lifestyle there's not really a whole bunch out there for you know what you're supposed to be eating if you want to be a weightlifter or bodylifter or you know that kind of stuff and so how much should I be eating based on this in body scan is what I'm assuming you guys are going to use and then with all of the other bone issues that I have I have watched episodes where Adam says nope you don't have any problems but I do I am working on squatting which is something that my orthopedic told me not to do anymore but I have started doing that again I have started learning how to do deadlifts which are a lot easier than squatting mind you but so how can I increase my muscle strength and the bone density because that is something at my age that I have to worry about without causing further damage to my joints because I do have osteoarthritis great question so let's back up for a second so bariatric surgery is where they essentially reroute the stomach create a new stomach for you very small and this changes things right you can't eat as much at one sitting and nutrient absorption issues become a reality right so I'm assuming your doctor has you on multiple supplements you get nutrient tested to make sure that you're not reaching any deficiencies correct I do have dalasemia so I will always have an iron deficiency okay you can't eat a lot at one sitting so you're going to have to eat small essentially small meals all day long believe it or not the bariatric diet actually has a lot more in common with a bodybuilder diet than the average person like when you look at a bodybuilder they tend to eat 6, 7, 8 meals a day you're going to be doing that and you're going to try and take your protein targets and divide it up over all those meals now what are your protein targets use your target body weight so what body weight is your target and I would aim for that maybe a little less than that in grams of protein do you know what your target body weight is or where your body weight I guess I hate to say it this way but should be for someone your height do you know what that would look like I do not how tall are you by 5 and a half okay I would aim for about 120 grams of protein a day that's not your ideal body that's not your target body weight your target body weight is probably closer to 150 but 120 is going to get you where you want so go 120 divided by however many meals you have in a day which is probably closer to 5 or 6 and then hit that in grams of protein each meal and eat it first this is going to be the priority of your meals so whatever you have your small meal eat the protein first so that you hit those targets hit 120 grams of protein a day to start now you mentioned your joint pain osteoarthritis this is a type of arthritis that develops because of what they would say is overuse but really what it is is it's poor movement patterns on joints and so you get wear and tear an autoimmune issue starts to develop in the joint and then you start to get the arthritic type of stuff and so one of the best ways to work with this is to improve your movement patterns improve your strength and move better so you ask about your joints you ask about building muscle you ask about building bone density the answer is the same for all of those it's going to be proper and appropriate strength training proper and appropriate strength training is going to be your best friend what does that look like I want you to move first off if you could work with a trainer or a movement specialist at least once a week that's going to be so valuable for someone like you because there's going to be such an individual variance with your exercise technique and what would be appropriate for you that I can give you general advice right now but if I watch you move and train you and if you're unfamiliar with these exercises to be guided through that process is going to be crucial to do it correctly but a good guiding principle would be this train within your limits but get to the edge meaning let's say you practice a squat okay and you watch our videos this is what a good form looks like I'm going to try doing a squat go down until you start to feel like it starts to bother your joints that's your depth that you start with or a quarter squat to start with okay and then work on that and each time you practice the exercise try to get a little bit deeper with your squat and try to continue to work towards that edge and then wait and see how you feel the day after and the day after that did you judge it properly okay I think I feel okay or uh oh I went a little too far I'm going to back off on the next session and so slowly progress your strength and range of motion basic exercises and your joints will start to feel better and this where props and assistance really helps like a TRX strap or something you can hold on to while you're kind of dropping into that range of motion and you really want to find out like where those limits are and where that threshold lies so that way too when you go down and you squat you want to be able to get to the position where it's you can you can sit in it and then that's not the end of the work once you get to that depth you want to really squeeze your muscles and you want to really train them to be able to respond and to be able to provide you with uh you know the type of muscle recruitment to then um make that strength part of the movement to to get stronger as your way up so um really like it's about muscle tension and it's about the tempo being super super slow so you can really recognize how your body's kind of reacting whether or not you're stable and secure and strong or whether you have a little bit of instability there so a couple things one I'd like Doug to give you access to our private forum so that we can communicate through this process with you and if there's anything that we can do to help you along your journey if you feel comfortable enough I would love to see videos of you performing some of these movements so I can get better insight on where we see maybe a sticking point or we can give you a regression to an exercise that will help us out um I'm going to take a shot and a guess at something that might that you that might get some good value from because I've had clients just like you and in this in this situation too with your arthritis like I would grab um a pole or a tree something small that I can hold on to and I would I would walk myself down into a squat so in other words you're standing and the pole is like or the squat rack whatever you have access to is between your legs and you are working your way down all the way until you can get as deep as you can comfortably when you get to that range of motion where you can you can hold that position hold that for five to ten second holds and then you I'd have you come out of it and then go back in it that's a really good way to start to progress the depth of your squat uh it's safe so you have support with the prop right there Justin I think was alluding to that a little bit with like a TRX strap that would work you know like a suspension trainer and the dump fee squat would be amazing once you progress from that I mean I wouldn't jump right to that but that would be a really good way to then teach your body to generate more force and really it's it's about what kind of squat was that Justin it's called a dump fee squat you have a stick and you're pushing upward we have a video yeah we have a do you have a video for that so that would be the progression to what I said right the regression so the starting point would be walking down the pole as deep as you can get into the squat holding that position for five to ten second holds come out of it go back down it do that for you know five five to ten reps and try to progress that right so every day you're trying to do a little bit more of that you're you're trying to do a few more reps of it again a little bit deeper that's a good place to start with working on the squat I got an easier one for you Jennifer that you could probably just figure out right now like you're sitting in a chair right now yeah if you push back a little bit put your hands out in front of you like you're a zombie stand up slowly and then sit down slowly so don't plop into the chair but try to control your descent sit fully down and then stand back up there's your squat and that tends to be a really great regression for somebody it's a really good place to start who has pain in their knees in fact if you want to do one right now I could watch you yeah you want to try that you want to back up a little bit yeah yeah let's see what this looks like oh good you got another chair back there yeah get it out of the way so you're just going to sit down first yeah first slowly first sit down first sit down you sit down and then we'll get up and yeah okay now your knees your knees your feet are under your knees yep yes okay good now lean forward and slowly stand up slowly and slowly stand up okay now sit your back and slowly sit down don't plop down and then go ahead and sit yeah that's it yep that's a wrap did that hurt your knees no bit okay so you want to try it again and you want to slow down and moving away to where it doesn't hurt your knees or you get minimal very very minimal pain when you do that but that's it now you can actually put a pillow on the chair so you don't have to sit down as low and that would be maybe where you would regress but it's a very easy way to practice squatting and it takes out that change of direction that happens at the bottom where people tend to hurt now can you tighten your stomach just sitting there is that something you have access to yes okay so as you do that sorry really confused by that question it's a weird question it's a weird question but I'm getting somewhere with this okay this is all part of stability okay so as you go back to kind of sit down like you're doing the squat try try to brace okay so you can kind of slowly sit down yeah lower you sit down to the chair yeah I did not do that I know I didn't brace my core when I was sitting yeah it's like pretending like someone's going to tickle you yeah tighten it up yeah that's just one little thing I wanted to add there you go okay that's it so we're going to put you in the forum and keep up with us in the forum so we can continue to kind of help you out a little bit okay yeah I appreciate it do you have any other questions? symmetry or starter what do you think you should have let's send you a program we'll send you a starter we'll get you to symmetry starter is a good place for you to start and like I said is if you feel comfortable with putting the videos in the forum which by the way is what people do in there if you do that then we'll be able to give you feedback along the way and we'll slowly progress you through all this stuff awesome awesome I appreciate it you got it like I said there's not a lot of stuff out there so and I mean I found you guys totally by accident to be honest because you guys are explicit in your language so I had a block on there because my kid watches my youtube sorry Sal happened to be on somebody else's radio pod show my podcast sorry and that's how I ended up finding you guys so yeah this is you know progressing me is going to be awesome I know it awesome thanks if you're ever in California give us a call so we give you a hug okay oh yeah definitely you got it all right thank you take care thanks bye bye yeah Doug's right we say too many bad words like Doug over there smiling imagine if we were squeaky clean vindicated yeah she you know got the club we all worked in over there in San Atresa was across the street from trying a lot of people yeah we all got a lot of clients like that you know but the diet here's the thing a lot of people don't know when they get this surgery you're going to battle a lifetime of potential nutrient deficiencies it gets really hard to absorb nutrients and you just can't necessarily eat a normal way anymore you have to eat small meals all day long in order to adequately nourish yourself because you just you just can't do the typical breakfast lunch and dinner no type of deal look if you like mind pump head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free fitness guides they're all free they're all awesome you can also find us all on Instagram Justin is on Instagram my pump Justin I'm on Instagram at mind pump to Stefano and Adam is on Instagram at mind pump Adam